


Truth Care (Truth Brings)

by dressedupasmyself



Series: 30 Days of Klaroline (June 2020) [9]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: All Human, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Angst, Can I borrow some milk?, Elijah is a lawyer, F/M, Hope likes Caroline, Parent Klaus Mikaelson, Tyler sucks, so is Klaus (kind of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24631792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dressedupasmyself/pseuds/dressedupasmyself
Summary: “Caroline, please, I need your help.”Caroline blinked twice at her rumpled neighbour standing at her door at six in the morning, a slightly smoking curling iron in his hands and small fingers visible around his thighs.“I was asleep.”Klaus had the decency to look sheepish, but he didn’t go away so it didn’t mean anything.“I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t a complete emergency.”A tiny face became visible as the owner of the fingers grew curious and peeked out from behind her father.Caroline’s resolve softened as big green eyes blinked up at her.“What do you need?”
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson, past Caroline Forbes/Tyler Lockwood
Series: 30 Days of Klaroline (June 2020) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770547
Comments: 7
Kudos: 143





	Truth Care (Truth Brings)

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song "All The Small Things" by Blink-182.
> 
> I intended for this to be fluffy.... have some angst instead.

“Caroline, please, I need your help.”

Caroline blinked twice at her rumpled neighbour standing at her door at six in the morning, a slightly smoking curling iron in his hands and small fingers visible around his thighs.

“I was asleep.”

Klaus had the decency to look sheepish, but he didn’t go away so it didn’t mean anything.

“I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t a complete emergency.”

A tiny face became visible as the owner of the fingers grew curious and peeked out from behind her father.

Caroline’s resolve softened as big green eyes blinked up at her.

“What do you need?”

Hope didn’t let her father go very far, so Caroline ended up sandwiched between the kitchen counter and her reason for being set on _complicated_ on Facebook for the past three months.

“What dance are you doing?” Caroline asked, and if she was trying to break the awkward silence, then sue her.

Hope looked at her father first, in that way that little kids did when a stranger asked them a question. When Klaus nodded encouragingly, she told Caroline, “Teddy Bear’s Picnic,” with the most adorable lisp ever, and of course Klaus’s daughter had to be this precious to make Caroline’s life just that much harder.

“That sounds fun.” Caroline wrapped another strand of red hair around her own curling iron (because you’re ten seconds from burning the whole _street_ down with that thing, _honestly_ , Klaus) and Hope’s fingers loosened just enough around her father’s shirt for her knuckles to lose their whiteness. “Do you like it?”

“Yes, and my friends.”

“Oh?” Caroline scooted Klaus out of the way so she could reach better, and Hope looked panicked for a second but relaxed when she realised he wasn’t going anywhere. “Tell me about your friends. Are they just as pretty as you?”

“Lizzie is pretty like you and aunty Freya and aunty Rebekah, and Josie is pretty like Mom.”

Klaus’s smile held such soft amusement, and Caroline had to force herself to look away from his face so she didn’t accidently burn Hope’s hair.

“She means that Lizzie is blonde and Josie has brown hair,” he clarified, and Hope nodded until Caroline made a soft noise of protest.

“Sorry.” Hope clenched her eyes tightly shut.

“It’s okay, cupcake, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Caroline soothed. “I’m almost finished, then you can move all you want.”

Hope relaxed a little. Caroline curled two more strands of hair.

“My dress is yellow.”

“Yellow?” Caroline exclaimed, pleased that Hope had given the information up freely. “It must be the most beautiful dress to have ever existed!”

Hope giggled, and when Caroline’s eyes met Klaus’s, he was already looking at her with an indecipherable glint in his eyes.

The knock on her door was soft enough that Caroline thought she must have imagined it until she heard it a second time.

She picked up her cup of tea and padded over with socked feet. She swung open the door to reveal a red-headed five-year-old with neatly braided pigtails.

Caroline smiled. “Hey, cupcake.”

Hope smiled shyly. “Hello, Caroline.”

“To what do I owe this special visit?”

“Uncle Elijah is,” Hope’s forehead crinkled in concentration, “lactis intilirent.”

“Lactose intolerant?” Caroline asked, and Hope nodded, visibly pleased that she got it right enough for Caroline to understand. “Let me guess, your dad sent you over to ask for almond milk?”

“The special milk for uncle Elijah,” Hope agreed. “And he says that I can ask you to come eat ice cream with us after dinner so I can show you my new doll.”

Caroline stepped back and gestured for Hope to come inside. She shut the door to keep the cold air from the hallway out of her cosy flat.

“I would love to come see your new doll,” Caroline promised. She put down her tea and opened the fridge while Hope babbled about hair like uncle Kol, except longer.

After helping Hope get ready for her dance recital, Caroline had apparently made a good impression on the kid. Now every time Hope visited her dad, she made a point to talk to Caroline as well. It was unbearably sweet.

“She sounds very pretty,” Caroline said as she handed Hope the box of almond milk.

“So. How’s Tyler?”

“Seriously, Klaus?” Caroline grumbled. “The moment there’s no-one else around, that’s what you want to talk about?”

“I’d prefer to talk about you and your new job and what your opinion is on people volunteering to move to Mars, but something tells me that until we’ve discussed the unfortunate business with Tyler, love, you’re not going to be as willing to chat with me as you once were.”

Caroline had kept her promise to eat ice cream with the Mikaelsons. She’d met Elijah, who seemed very proper and spoke to her about the value of almond milk over rice milk for half an hour until he had to leave. She was surprised that Klaus’s eyes were still attached to his head with how frequently and enthusiastically he’d rolled them at his brother, and he’d seemed relieved once Elijah had gone.

“Elijah is wonderful to have on your side during a custody battle,” Klaus confessed to her while Hope was in the next room, “but he’s not my first choice in company on a Friday night.”

It would have been easy, then, to go back to their usual flirting. She could have asked who his first choice was, and she knew he would have replied with some silky smooth comment about how _that would be you, sweetheart_ , and she’d have fluttered her lashes at him and maybe get a flash of those dimples she liked so much for her efforts.

But she didn’t, because they were still _complicated_ and Hope would be back any second with her black-haired doll, and she’d rather not be caught groping her father in the middle of the kitchen.

And now Hope was asleep, and Caroline was forced to rip the band aid off.

“Fine, let’s talk about Tyler.”

Klaus sat back against the arm of the couch and watched her with wary eyes. She didn’t know why she’d sat down right next to him, but the idea of sitting all the way across the room in the armchair had been ridiculous when it was just the two of them and the couch was easily big enough for four people.

“You threatened to fire him, which, by the way, you never even told me that he worked for you and Elijah in the first place.”

“Yes.” There wasn’t a hint of regret on his face. “I caught him cheating on you, so I said I’d fire him for leaking confidential information to the media.”

“Which is as good as rendering him unemployed with how secretive, yet fond of gossip you lawyer-types are.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Klaus tilted his head to the side as if he was truly puzzled by her train of thought. “I told you.”

“Yes, I get it, he was making out with Liv-the-receptionist in the parking lot. That doesn’t explain why you _threatened_ him instead of just telling me about it?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Caroline felt her blood run a little cold in her veins. Whenever Klaus started a declaration with those three words, it either ended in tears or uncomfortable thoughts that kept her up all night.

Klaus leaned closer, his eyes like a scalpel, piercing right through her. “I was giving him a chance to choose you over her. I _wanted_ him to choose you, because he made you happy.”

There was a lump in Caroline’s throat, and she struggled to swallow around it. “But he didn’t.”

Klaus nodded once, and there was nothing sympathetic in his expression, even as he watched her fall apart.

“He quit, and he left you behind.”

Caroline straightened her spine, determined not to let him see her break. “And you started talking to me. We were _friends_ , Klaus.”

His hard gaze softened a little at that. “A bit more, I think.”

Caroline stood, the proximity to Klaus and the confused tumble of feelings too much for her to bear.

“How do you expect me to be _more_ with you when you can’t even be a decent friend?” She paced across the carpet, gesticulating wildly as words that she’d been bottling up for weeks came spilling out. “You knew I was upset because Tyler up and left without so much as an explanation. You knew I was struggling to move on, that I needed closure, and even though you could have given it to me, you didn’t. Why?”

“It would have hurt you, Caroline. It was better to let you wonder than know how little Tyler actually cared when you would have burned the world for him.” He was still speaking quietly, and Caroline hated how it threatened to turn her anger into sadness. She wished he would fight back, instead.

Caroline laughed, and it was a bitter sound of air forced from her throat. “I don’t need anyone to protect me, Klaus. I don’t need _you_ to protect me. What I need is honesty, someone I can count on to give me bad news even if it leaves me crumbled on the floor for a week.”

Klaus cringed at the image.

“Daddy?”

Caroline whipped around to see Hope in the doorway to the living room, stuffed bunny clutched in her arms. Her anger flooded away into nothing, replaced instead by guilt. She never should have started this conversation with Hope two doors down, not when she knew that it wouldn’t be a nice one.

“Sweetheart,” Klaus said, and Hope ran straight for his arms. He pulled her onto his lap, and she hid her face in his shoulder.

“You promised no more fighting.” Hope’s voice was small, but Caroline heard it just fine, and her eyes burned.

She turned and fled, even though it made her feel like the world’s biggest coward.

It took him a week to come to her, and she almost slammed the door in his face.

“Caroline,” he growled, his foot blocking the door. “We need to finish our conversation.”

“Why, so I can scar you daughter some more? No thanks.” She shoved at the door again, but he didn’t budge.

“Hope is with Hayley.”

She leaned her forehead against the door, feeling defeat crawl into her bones. She was tired, and in no mood for a fight.

“I don’t want to argue.”

“We don’t have to,” Klaus said, “I believe it’s my turn to say something. Give me three minutes, and then I’ll leave you be, forever.”

“Forever?” she asked, voice muffled against the door.

“Forever.”

She opened it reluctantly, and he squeezed past her.

“What are you busy with?” he asked, looking at the mess of magazine clippings all over the coffee table.

“I’m making a collage.” Caroline folded her arms.

“What for?”

“Don’t question my coping mechanisms. The clock is ticking.”

“Right.” Klaus sat on the couch, then looked at her expectantly until she joined him. “I owe you an apology.”

“Or three,” she grouched, but he ignored her.

“I’ve come to realise that I overstepped my boundaries.” She started to interrupt again, but he held up a hand to stop her. “Let me speak, sweetheart.”

She sat back.

“How I handled Tyler leaves much to be desired. Maybe not at first, but definitely once you and I grew closer. I should have been more truthful with you, both regarding the business with Liv and my feelings.

“The truth is, I gave Tyler the choice that I did because I wished that I had the same one. I wished that you would give me the opportunity to choose you, love, because I would, seven times over. And I thought that, if I couldn’t have that, at least I could give you the opportunity to be happy, but it backfired spectacularly when Tyler turned out be even more of an arse than we already knew.

“So I’m sorry for not respecting you as I should have. I always value the honesty you extend to me, and for me to withhold the same privilege from you, as your friend, made me a hypocrite.”

Caroline nodded, rolling his words around in her mind as she tried to make sense of it.

“Thank you,” she finally said, “for being honest.”

“Of course, love.”

She slumped forward, hands covering her face as she groaned. “I’ve been feeling so bad for what happened with Hope. I used to be her, you know, listening to my parents fight, and then to my dad and Steven. It’s the kind of thing that lingers.”

Klaus’s hand came to rest against her back, and he soothingly raked his nails up and down her spine.

“Hope is fine,” he said, voice gentle. “She was born from a one-night stand. Hate sex, more than anything else. It’s not the most stable basis to build a family on, yet here we are. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail for every moment I get to spend with her. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone as much.”

Caroline sat up so she could see his face, his hand slipping until it curved around her elbow. “You’re a good dad, Klaus. I wish mine tried as hard for me as you do for Hope.”

He shook his head, eyes unfocused. “I fuck up a lot. I have no idea what I’m doing, half the time. The last thing I should probably be doing is to try and drag a new relationship into the whole mess.” He blinked at her. “But I want to.”

Caroline sighed.

She hadn’t forgiven him yet, not completely. She was still too hurt, too unsure of what to make of his confession and Tyler’s actions and the undeniable pull she felt whenever Klaus entered a room. Then there was Hope, and the fact that Caroline didn’t want to give the little girl something to grow attached to if it wasn’t going to work out in the long run, and Caroline wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.

She’d been there, when Steven left her father, and she wouldn’t allow history to repeat itself.

“I don’t want you to leave me alone forever.”

“No?” There was just a hint of a smile on Klaus’s face.

“But we have time. I need some to figure out where I stand with myself, and with you. I think you need some to focus on Hope, and making sure she knows that you’re not going anywhere. There’s no need to rush anything.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” She was surprised at how readily he agreed with her.

“I’d still like a chance to choose you, Caroline, but I want you to choose me back. I’m willing to wait for that.” His eyes glittered, and his grin was just a little mischievous. “However long it takes.”

She huffed out a laugh at his ridiculous promise.

“Fine, then.” She looked at the mess on the coffee table. “Do you want to make a collage with me?”


End file.
